


the best strider is a dead strider

by 3amepiphany



Series: Drabbles 'n Bits [14]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 20:13:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11813382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3amepiphany/pseuds/3amepiphany
Summary: Rose said they were called hypnagogic massive jerks, something the body and brain do to stay alive - and all he had to say was how fitting a name that was.





	the best strider is a dead strider

**Author's Note:**

> mallius: the best strider is a dead strider
> 
> http://billetdouxnondistribue.tumblr.com/post/36447258543/genuscorvus-convivalchucker-mallius-the

Even now, after the Red Miles came and went, their swathing run of destruction stopped by the Tumor, and long after Dave was sure he’d died for the last time, he would still get that feeling, sitting at a desk or lying in bed waiting to dream. Rose said they were called hypnagogic massive jerks, something the body and brain do to stay alive - and all he had to say was how fitting a name that was. She laughed and said he needed more sleep. 

But its not that easy. He’s dying, somewhere, in some splintered timeline. And he lies awake most nights wondering if the dreams they say he’s not supposed to have are the memories of those other Striders, unlocked because they were all him, and therefore the memories are all his to access, according to the weird bubble notions. He knows the unnatural feeling of his insides slipping out, warm and steaming into your hands and against paper-white snow; the tight feeling in his chest so bad that he can’t breathe, and the pain of broken ribs and what it is to be impaled on a broken tree branch; he knows the terrible seeping suffocation of drowning, the salt water burning at his eyes, in his nose, in his lungs; the haunting sound of frogs cautiously filling the night with their alert sounds, quickly fading in his ears, Jade in her beautiful dress fading in his eyesight, her hands uselessly trying to stop the bleeding. He had long stopped being afraid of death itself, but never the ways in which he’d died.

He lay in bed, drifting off, when he jerked wide awake again, that falling sensation sending the hair on his neck and arms standing straight up, goosebumps appearing and a cold sweat forming on his forehead. He sat up quickly and checked his chest and stomach, and satisfied finally with still being “alive”, he rolled over and put on his shades, the soft glow of their screens lighting up his face behind them.

Their connection no longer worked right on the meteor but he still had programs he could use.

He opened up a text editor file and scrolled through the first few pages of a document before heading all the way to the bottom, most of the last page blank and his cursor blinking, waiting. Terezi’s quiet suggestion that he start keeping track of these things was way beyond having become a simple habit and not something anyone else putting his shades on can open. She has seen him die recently as well, looking at the entry at the top of the page. Using the keyboard interface, he carefully constructed a new paragraph from this recent memory, under the last.

“Tried to stop Lord English. He thought in colors. He saw me red. Torn in half in front of Bro. How early on did this one splinter? Why does this guy keep appearing to me? And so much more often now? He’s worse than Jack.”

He stared at the words for a few minutes before saving and filing the document back and away, then took his shades off and set them back down next to his shoes and cape, relaxing back down onto his makeshift bed.

He couldn’t get back to sleep that night. And when Rose asked him how he was the next morning, he gave her a small smile and lied, because he couldn’t while they stood on the edge of their tier-deaths, the Miles whipping about them both.

He needed more time to figure out this new threat, but all more time meant was more deaths. And more memories.


End file.
